YouCan Always Tell When There's a Flashback inJUMP
by titangirl161
Summary: one shot Otose centric It's a slow night at Otose's snack house, so she thinks of her relationship with her boarders, especially a silver haired samurai


Friends and haters, I return for another Gintama fic! Woo! This is another story that was supposed to come out MONTHS ago, but me is lazy, so it's coming out now! This is Otose-centric, as I gained a newfound love for her after the Kabuki-cho war arc, and is a bit introspective look into her thoughts and feelings for her boarders who she never gets the rent from, and this will probably end up being a bit fluffy, as I have the official title of the Fluff Master, given to me by my beta. So my puppy-muse Scribble will do the disclaimer, and we will begin!

Scribble: We do not own Gintama. We hate Viz media for cancelling the series, and love a certain translator who continues on after an ENTIRE COMPANY gives up.

And now we will all thank my good friend and beta What2callmyself? , because she is awesome and makes my stories intelligible.

You Can Always Tell When There's a Flashback in JUMP Because the Pages Are Black

It was a Tuesday night at Otose's Snack House, and being that it was a Tuesday, business was slow, but this particular day it was even slower than normal. And Otose had a feeling that was the fault of the people living above her in the Yorozuya.

Otose took a drag of her cigarette while glaring at the ceiling, as if she could telepathically send them the message to stop because they were scaring away her customers. She couldn't see exactly WHAT they were doing, but there was a lot of banging, shouts, and other assorted noises she could only guess were coming from the TV that was too loud. She also wondered if perhaps the ninja-stalker girl was up there too since she often seemed to be sneaking in and lurking around, completely tied up (how DID she manage to do that, anyway?) and gagged, until Gin found her and threw her out just as she was. But today it seemed like more a Yorozuya-only conflict, because technically, despite Gin's age, it was pretty similar to three obnoxious teenage girls forced to live together while all on their periods.

She sighed. Why did she allow that lazy freeloader to live with her again? She thought back, to when she first met him….

~Flashback~

"Hey, are those meat buns?"

Otose looked up. She had come to the graveyard alone to visit Tastugoro's grave like she did every now and then, and had brought along some meat buns for him on this winter's evening. There was a man leaning against the grave, his back to her out in the snow. She could see his short, curly silver hair, but could not see his face. But his voice wasn't slurred, so he probably wasn't some random drunk, and despite his hair color, his voice sounded like a young man.

"Can I have one of those please? I'm so hungry, I feel like I'm about to croak."

He sounded like he was about to croak too…and his clothes looked awfully thin. How long had he been out here, in the cold, probably starving? She took a deep breath. "These are for my husband. You'll have to ask him."

The man didn't rise…it was more like he shifted himself around until he was facing the front of the grave, and without even looking at her, picked up the meat buns and began to savagely dig into them, obviously having been on the verge of starvation. Otose was a bit surprised, although something in her thought that if Tatsugoro really was asked, he never would've refused food to someone who was starving…just like Otose had been, seeing as she was fired for giving away food to kids and starving animals. They both had soft hearts, it seemed.

The man really didn't pay much attention to her as he continued eating, and so finally Otose had to ask. "Well, what did he say?"

The man finally turned to look at her.

Her first thought was 'Oh my, he's so young!' And he was, young enough to be her grandson. He looked barely twenty, and already he was in such desperate straits? She knew the war hadn't been too easy on anyone, but to be this hard? It hardly seemed fair. And the silver hair was due to the fact that the man must've been albino…his skin was as white as the snow falling, and his eyes were red, and looked almost dull and dead, like looking at a fish in the market. Otose knew eyes like those well- they were the eyes of someone whose soul had suffered too much, and was dead inside.

And she would never forget the answer he gave her.

"Nothing. He was too busy being dead."

Otose felt a mixture of anger and sadness bubbling up inside her. He certainly was pretty rude, especially after eating food meant for her deceased husband. "Don't come crying to me if he curses you," she told him.

The man looked at the grave. "Tatsugoro Terada…was he your husband?"

"Yes he was."

The man finally rose to stand beside her, looking down at the grave with her. "What's wrong with him, dying and leaving his old woman all alone with no one to look after her?"

Otose had to swallow a lump in her throat.

"However, you did save me from death…," the man appeared to be speaking to the grave. "And I won't forget that kindness, so I'll make you this promise. You don't have to worry in the afterlife about your wife here…I doubt she has too much time left (Otose felt irked again here) but for whatever time she has left, I'll stay with her and look after her in your place."

Otose looked up at the man in surprise, and was shocked to see a small smile on his face. "Don't worry, even if it's only you, I won't let you down…you can count on me."

Otose had one last question. "What is your name?"

"I'm Sakata Gintoki, but you can call me Gin."

~End Flashback~

Otose sighed again, as she was interrupted from her musings from the thumps upstairs.

"Who do those freeloaders think they are?" Catherine fumed with her fists clenched. "Don't they know some people have to work? And they're scaring everyone away! Those idiots, they're probably fighting over the last scraps of food they've got up there!"

Otose had to agree with her there. "Usually the kid with glasses is calmer, but even he seems to have joined the rumble. I don't know what it could be other than food if he is involved, unless he threw out Gintoki's JUMP while cleaning before he could read it."

"Honestly, Gin is such a kid!" Catherine huffed.

Yeah, that had been evident even back then….

~Flashback~

Gin groaned as Otose dabbed his face with the alcohol-soaked cotton. Otose never had any children of her own, she and Tatsugoro had wanted to wait, but then Tatsugoro died very young, which made Otose very sad as she didn't even have a child to remember him by. Nevertheless, she did have some maternal instincts, and when Gin had come home bruised and beaten, she couldn't help but jump to patch him up.

Gin had been staying in the apartment above her for almost a month now, and she told him not to worry about the rent right away, she would help him find work, and he could pay her back (she would regret saying that later, as Gin, despite having a job, sometimes didn't have work, and usually did all he could to NOT pay her back) when he had the money. She had heard about this loading job from the docks, and was able to get him the job pretty easily…he was a healthy strong young man after all. But now, only three weeks later, he had been fired and come home beaten up.

"So what did you do?" she asked him, a little tiredly.

"I didn't do anything! It was his daughter's fault!"

"If you couldn't keep it in your pants, it's your fault."

"Ew! It wasn't like that at all! She hit on me!"

"And…?" Otose asked incredulously.

"I turned her down! She was a cow! There was no interest there!"

"Let me guess…you also called her that to her face?"

"I was being honest!"

"Not to mention tactless."

"Well, she went crying to her dad that I was trying to take advantage of her, and he did a number on my face and fired me! But I didn't do anything wrong!"

Otose sighed. "I know it isn't very fair, but life rarely is fair. You have to learn to cooperate with people and be more respectful of them to get anywhere in life."

"Can't I just work with random people and be completely honest?"

"And how do you expect to find work like that?"

"I could be a freelancer…like a jack of all trades, and do all kinds of different things for all kinds of different people."

And it was there, she knew later, that the Yorozuya was born.

~End Flashback~

Otose was actually relieved they didn't have many customers at the moment, as she kept going off in her memories…or at least she WOULD be, if certain people upstairs would stop making noise. And she had had enough of it.

"Tama?"

"Yes, Otose-san?"

"Start a timer for fifteen minutes, and if they don't quiet down in that time, go up there and get the rent." She knew, too well, that getting the rent involved blasting into the apartment with her mop.

"Roger, the timer for fifteen minutes starts now," Tama said, her eyes glowing a bit, and Otose could almost hear the ticking. Then Tama returned to cleaning.

Otose smiled at the robot. Sure, she was made of metal, but still Otose thought of her as a daughter, and she was a great help around the shop. She took another drag of her cigarette. The only reason she had Tama in the first place was thanks to those three…they had been the ones to rescue her. It felt almost like payback. Her mind drifted to another time when it was just her and Gin….

~Flashback~

Gin sat at the bar, mumbling sadly into the glass of water, since he couldn't pay for actual alcohol. "I'm really sorry, but I just don't have a lot of work right now…that's why I don't have money," he half-heartedly apologized to Otose.

"Yet somehow you have enough money to go buy JUMP every week…what kind of grown man reads JUMP anyway?"

"It's a living expense…like food," Gin made up the excuse.

"Well, I know for a fact that pachinko isn't a living expense, yet you still decided to go waste some money playing that!"

"Um, I'm going to need to make a few more friends before you go staging an intervention for a gambling addiction or something. But really, I thought there'd be more work! I really can't help it if no one comes in!"

"Then go find work!"

"Where?" Gin asked.

"The streets, if you really have no where else!" Then, she added darkly, sarcastically, "You can make a good deal of money for a pretty face like yours, and you can finally put that big mouth of yours to use."

She expected him to roll his eyes, to tell her to get serious, to scowl and be angry, but did not expect the response he gave…his face looked even paler, if possible, his eyes looked stricken and a bit fearful, and his whole frame was shaking. And Otose realized he thought she was serious- and was actually considering it. He gulped, but slowly rose to his feet, his head hanging to stare at the ground, and he started to head to the door, and was halfway across the room when Otose grabbed his arm.

"Get back here…sit down. I wasn't serious; I would never seriously suggest that to anyone. Just sit down."

Gin sat down, and his eyes were still downcast, covered by his bangs and couldn't be seen. Otose sighed. "Just don't worry about it right now; we'll talk about the rent again later."

Gin didn't respond, but instead leaned his head down on the bar and let out a breath he was holding, and while he made no other sound, his shoulders were shaking and Otose could tell he didn't want her to see him right now. Instead she took a deep breath and placed a hand gently on his shoulders, rubbing them. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I hope you can forgive me."

Neither said anything else and Gin actually fell asleep right there, though luckily he woke up in time to hear someone knocking on his door, and was able to work that day. He came down to Otose again to give her the rent and to buy a beer for himself as well, and the two talked long into the night.

~End Flashback~

"Time is half up and the noises are still persisting," Tama's voice spoke up.

"Honestly, how long has it been now? Are they seriously going to keep this up all night?" Catherine ranted.

The robot maid and the cat-eared amanto continued to talk/yell/rant and rave about it and Otose smiled at the two. At least SHE had two hard workers. While Shinpachi was a fairly responsible and diligent boy, she had serious doubts about the Yato girl, Kagura. It seemed Kagura had been picking up a bunch of Gin's bad habits (picking her nose and rubbing it on people was one of them, not to mention she often copied his speech patterns) and Otose just hoped she continued toward her dream of alien hunting.

But then again, it was those two that brought the light back to Gin's eyes. Sure, they were still deadpan, but at least they looked a little more alive to her. They weren't the same fish eyes as the man she had met in the graveyard so long ago. She remembered the first time she had seen the light in his eyes….

~Flashback~

"Hey, do you have children, Granny?"

Otose looked over at him. This was about two months before Gin would meet Shinpachi and Kagura and the three would form the Yorozuya that was as it was today. But before then, Gin was on his own again. He also would often come down to the bar, though he rarely bought anything (unless it was cheap beer when he had the money for it) and sometimes she would tell him to go away unless he was drinking, but the truth was, she really didn't mind the company at all. There were many quiet nights and times when she wanted to talk to someone, and now, she had that someone, even if he was a lazy ex-Joi who kept trying to get out of paying the rent. "No, I don't, why do you ask?"

"Oh. I was thinking if you had children, they would be very bad children, never coming to check up on their poor old mom."

"No one can check up because there is no one."

"Why not? Did your husband have trouble getting his little samurai up for battle?"

Otose threw a glass at his head. "It had nothing to do with that!" She took a moment to compose herself. "He went out to fight in the war, and he died, very young too. We never had the chance to have children." She fell silent, feeling a little sad.

"Hmm, you and I are the same then," he said softly as she turned to look at him, a bit puzzled. "I never knew my parents, I guess they died young too, though they did have me first…I don't even know if they were the ones who named me, or if it's really my name…I just as well could've just appeared out of thin air."

"Hmph. No one just appears out of thin air. Even if you never knew them, you still did have parents…and one of them was probably albino, just as you are."

"Yeah, and the other had curly hair and cursed me with it," Gin muttered. "I was raised by Sensei, but still I have to wonder what it would've been like if I had known them."

Otose was a bit surprised. Gin was actually talking about his past! He almost never wanted to volunteer the information, so Otose didn't pry. But to hear this…she did see a bit of a parallel between them. "I think he did a good enough job on you, so I'm sure your parents weren't worried."

"I guess…but…I've never had someone older around…that I could call a grandma. It's…it's actually really nice to have a Granny now."

He smiled and for the first time since meeting him, Otose could see his normally dull and dead red eyes with a light in them…they were still alive after all! His soul was wounded, but it wasn't dead yet, it was still fighting. And as she thought about what he told her, she had to agree with him as she once again saw the same parallel. She smiled back at him. "Yeah…it's nice to have a grandson."

~End Flashback~

Just two minutes before the time would've run up, the noises stopped, and all was quiet. Catherine was disappointed that they didn't get the chance to blow up their apartment, and Otose finished her cigarette and her flashbacks along with it. It was late and almost closing time, so the three of them closed up shop for the night and went to bed.

Very early the next morning, Otose got up and crept upstairs slowly, quietly. She needed to see for herself what it had all been about. What they were all fighting so fiercely over that they made it sound like the roof would collapse at any second.

She had an extra key to the apartment, and so she let herself inside, but did not expect the scene she saw in front of her.

All three of them were lying on the floor, having apparently fought each other to exhaustion before passing out asleep. Shinpachi was on his stomach, his hand still outstretched for something, and his other hand was still pushing against Gin's shoulder, probably trying to knock his hand away from something that was on the floor. Kagura was curled up on one side, and she was half wrapped around Gin's body, making it look like she had wrapped herself around him and was trying to break his back before giving up and falling asleep, probably due to hunger. And between the two kids was Gin himself, also on his side, one hand reaching out and the other curled under him, pinned down by Kagura's grip. But that wasn't what really caught Otose's attention. Shinpachi didn't have his glasses, and Kagura's hair holders were off. They were both laying on the table quite neatly, and a white and blue kimono covered the three, and Otose knew exactly how it got there, and who put it there.

She found herself smiling again. This scene…it was strangely domestic. It was normal, well, for these three at least. They really seemed just like a normal family, Gin looking out for his younger siblings. Sure they fought, they had good times, they had bad times, and at the end of the day, they were all there for each other. Even if there was no blood between them, they were as close as any other family. And she too, was happy to be one of them, the grandmother always watching after her unruly grandchildren, and even if they aggravated her at times, she would do anything for them, for they were, truly, her family as well.

And as she looked to see the TV guide on the floor and the object the two hands were reaching for, she knew what they were fighting over last night, but figured no one got it before time ran out. It had been about a half an hour's worth of yelling after all. So she went and picked up the object and took it downstairs with her.

She met Catherine and Tama on the way down. "Good morning Otose-san," Tama greeted her. Then she saw the object in Otose's hand. "Is that what I think it is?"

"What would you need that for?" Catherine asked.

"Oh, this?" Otose asked, holding up the remote for Gintoki's TV. "This is insurance, so that I get the rent on time this month."

Scribble: This is a bit long.

Me: Must you always be that way? Ok, it's longer than intended, but so what? I liked writing it so there! So everyone, here is my latest one-shot! Tell me what you think? Flames telling me how much I suck without telling me how to improve are worthless and they suck. Constructive criticism is appreciated. And good reviews are loved! So thanks for taking your time to read this, and more thanks to those moving the cursor to that little blue button. Long Live the Yorozuya!

-titangirl161


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